Chapter- Three

Design of Work
Systems
 Introduction
 Designing a work system is part of developing
an operations strategy.
 Effective operations strategy provides structure
for company productivity
 The work system includes:
o Job design
o Work measurements
o Worker compensation
 Work Study
 A generic term for the techniques of method study and
work measurement.
 These techniques are used in the examination of human
work in all its contexts.
 They lead systematically to the investigation of all the factors
which affect the efficiency and production at the workplace.
 Method Study: to simplify job and develop more economical
method of doing work.
 Work Measurement (Time Study): to determine the standard
time for doing an operation.
 Objectives of Work Study
 Main objective:
o To obtain the optimum use of human and other physical as
well as material resources available to an organization for a
give work.
 Specific objectives:
o To reduce or eliminate non-productive time and work
o To fix a standard time for doing a job
o To evaluate workers performance
o To improve methods of operations
o To develop standard data for future reference
 Job Design
 Specifies the contents of the job.
 Specifies the work activities of an individual or a group in
support of an organization’s objectives.
 The design of a job should answer the following questions:
o What is the description of the job?
o What is the purpose of the job?
o Where is the job done?
o Who does the job?
o What background, training, or skills does an employee need to do the
job?
 Job Design
 The three additional factors in job design:
A. Technical Feasibility
 The job must be physically and mentally doable
 The technical feasibility of a job is the degree to which an
individual or group of individuals is physically and mentally
able to do the job.
 Good job design eliminates unreasonable requirements
and ensures that any constraining requirements are
necessary to do the job.
 This in turn widens the applicant pool and gives a company
a chance to hire the best candidates on the market.
 Job Design
 The three additional factors in job design:
B. Economic Feasibility
 The cost of the job should be less than the value it adds.
 The economic feasibility of a job is the degree to which the
value a job adds and the cost of having the job done create
profit for the company.
 If the job as it is designed costs more than the value it
adds, then it is not economically feasible.
 Job Design
 The three additional factors in job design:
C. Behavioral Feasibility
 The behavioral feasibility of a job is the degree to which an
employee derives intrinsic satisfaction from doing the job.
 The challenge is to design a job so the worker feels good
about doing the job and adds value by doing it.
 This presents two problems:
o What motivates one worker may not motivate another
worker.
o Someone has to do the boring jobs.
 Job Design
 Behavioral Considerations in Job Design:
Degree of Labor Specialization
Job Specialization is the division of labor into
unique tasks
Specialization of labor can be seen from two
aspects.
o It has made possible high speed, low cost
production.
o Extreme specialization often has adverse
effects on workers, which in turn are passed
on to the production systems.
Specialization in Job Design
Specialization from management’s perspective
Advantages Disadvantages
 Readily available labor  Lack of flexibility
 Minimal training needed  Workers dissatisfaction characterized by
 Reasonable wage cost o High absenteeism
 High productivity o High turnover rate

Specialization from employees perspective

Advantages
o Minimal credentials needed
o Minimal responsibilities
o Minimal mental effort needed
o Reasonable wages
Disadvantages
o Boredom
o Little growth opportunity
o Little control over work
o Little room for initiative
o Little intrinsic satisfaction
 Behavioral Approaches to Job Design
Two popular approaches are job enrichment
and socio-technical systems.
1. Intended to reduce boredom associated with
labor specialization.
Job enlargement
 Horizontal expansion of the job through increasing the
scope of the work assigned. It is Horizontal Loading.
Job enrichment
 Vertical expansion of the job through increased worker
responsibility for planning & coordinating of task.
Job rotation
 Shifting of cross trained workers to other tasks
 Periodically workers exchange work.
 Behavioral Approaches to Job Design
 Two popular approaches are job enrichment and socio-technical systems.
2. Socio-technical Systems
 The socio-technical systems approach is consistent with the job
enrichment philosophy but focuses more on the interaction between
technology and workgroup.
 This approach attempts to develop jobs that adjust the needs of the
production process technology to the needs of the worker and work
group.
 The individual or work group requires a logically integrated patter of
work activities that incorporates the following job design principles:
 Task variety
 Skill variety
 Feedback
 Task identity
 Task autonomy
 Physical Considerations in Job Design
 While motivation and work group structure strongly influence job
performance, they may be of secondary importance if the job is too
demanding form a physical (human factors) standpoint.
 Work physiology:
o An approach to incorporating the physical coats of moderate to heavy
work in job design.
o Work physiology sets work rest–cycles according to the energy
expended in the various parts of the job.
o The harder the work, the more frequent and longer the rest periods.
 Work environment:
o The physical environment in which employees work affects their
performance, safety, and quality of work life.
o Illumination, noise and vibration, temperature, humidity, and air quality
are work environment factors under the control of the organization and
the operations manager.
 Physical Considerations in Job Design
 Ergonomics:
 A good interface between human and machine must be
built. Studies of this interface are known as ergonomics.
 Ergo = Work; Nomics = Study; Ergonomics= Study of
Work.
 It is used to describe the study of the physical arrangement
of the work space together with the tools used to perform a
task.
 In applying ergonomics, we strive to fit the work to the body
rather than forcing the body to conform to the work.
 Work Measurement
• The fundamental purpose of work measurement is to
set time standards for a job.
• Properly set labor standards represent the amount of
time it should take an average employee to perform
specific job activities under normal working condition.
• Labor standards may be set in three ways:
– Historical experience
– Work Measurement/Time studies
– Predetermined time standards
 Work Measurement
1. Historical Experience
• Labor standards can be estimated based on historical experience;
i.e., how many labor-hours were required to do a task the last time
it was performed.
– Historical standards have the distinct advantage of being relatively easy
and inexpensive to obtain.
– They are usually available from employee time cards or production
records.
• But they are not objective.
– Do they present a reasonable work pace or a poor work pace?
– Are unusual occurrences included?
– Because these variables are unknown, their use is not recommended.
 Work Measurement
2. Work Measurement/Time studies
• Work measurement is the process of estimating the amount of worker
time required to produce one unit of output.
• Determines how long it should take to do a job.
• Goal of work measurement is to develop labor standards that can be
used for planning and controlling operations.
 Standard time
• The length of time it should take a qualified worker using appropriate
process and tools to complete a specific job, allowing time for personal
fatigue and unavoidable delays.
• The second component in work system design, work measurement, is
a way of determining how long it should take to do a job.
• Work measurement techniques are used to set a standard time for a
specific job.
In restaurant, for example, the time needed to take the customer’s order
and communicate that information to the kitchen staff can be calculated
as the standard time.
 Work Measurement
 Steps in Work Measurement
1. Define the task to be studied (after methods analysis
has been conducted).
2. Break down the task into precise elements (parts of a
task that often take no more than a few seconds).
3. Decide how many times to measure the task (the
number of cycles or samples needed).
4. Time and record the elemental times and ratings of
performance.
5. Compute the average actual cycle time.
– The average actual cycle time is the arithmetic mean of the times for each
 Work Measurement
 Steps in Work Measurement
6. Compute the normal time for each element. This measure is a
“Performance rating” for the particular worker pace observed.
Normal time = (Average actual cycle time) x (Rating factor)
• The performance rating adjusts the observed time to what a normal worker
could expect to accomplish.
7. Sum of normal times for each element to develop at total normal time for
the task.
8. Compute the standard time. This adjustment to the total normal time
provides for allowances such as personal needs, unavoidable work delays,
and worker fatigue:
Standard time =Total normal time
1- Allowance factor
– Personal time allowances are often established in the range of 4% to
7% of total time, depending upon nearness to restrooms, water
fountains, and other facilities.
– Delay standards are often set as a result of the actual studies of the
delay that occurs.
 Work Measurement
Example: Labor Standard
In a time study of a manufacturing operation, the average time observed
to complete a product was 8.6 minutes. The performance rating applied
to the observed worker was 0.95 and the allowance during an 8-hour shift
were 12.5% or 60 minutes. Compute the labor standard.
Observed time = 8.6 minutes
Performance rating = 0.95
Allowance factor = 0.125
o Normal time = Observed time x Performance rating
= 8.6 x 0.95
= 8.17 minutes
o Standard Time = Normal time / (1 - Allowance)
= 8.17 / (1 - 0.125)
= 8.17 / (0.875)
= 9.337 minutes
• This means that a worker can prepare 51item in an 8-hour shift (480
minutes divided by 9.337 minutes)
 Work Measurement
 Work Sampling
o Work sampling method of developing labor or production
standards involves random observations to record the activity
that the worker is performing.
 Work Sampling Procedure
1. Identify the worker or machine to be sampled
2. Define the activities to be observed
3. Estimate the sample size based on level of accuracy and confidence
level
4. Develop the random observation schedule. Make observations over a
time period that is representative of normal work conditions
5. Make your observations and record the data. Check to see whether
the estimated sample size remains valid
6. Estimate the proportion of the time spent on the given activity
 Work Measurement
3. Predetermined Time Standards
• Predetermined time standards divide manual work into small basic
elements before established times (based on very large samples of
workers).
• To estimate the time for a particular task, the time factors for each
basic element of the task are added together.
• For any given firm to develop a comprehensive system of
predetermined time standards would be prohibitively expensive.
o First, they may be established in a laboratory environment, which will not
upset production activities (which time studies tend to do).
o Second, the standard can be set before a task is done and can be used
for planning.
o Third, no performance ratings are necessary-and the method is widely
accepted by unions as a fair means of setting standards.
 Predetermined time standards are particularly effective in firms that do
substantial numbers of studies where the tasks are similar. Some firms
use both time studies and predetermined time standards to ensure
accurate labor standards.